poliphilo: (corinium)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2014-02-24 08:31 am

Sacred Country: Rose Tremain

Mary Ward is growing up in rural Suffolk in the grisly 1950s knowing she's really a boy. Her parents are useless- one brutal and the other fey- and there's an abattoir next door. So far, so kitchen sink but for all its horrors- and they not glossed over- this is a lyrical, funny book- a celebration of misfits and misfittery.

If Tremain were our creator we'd be on a roll because she loves us all no matter what.

[identity profile] cmcmck.livejournal.com 2014-02-24 12:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Whilst I was growing up in the late fifties/ sixties in urban Kent one parent a bundle of -phobias and -isms and the other a narcissist, knowing I was really a girl so this one had, shall we say, subtler shades of meaning than it might have for some! :o)

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2014-02-24 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Do you like it? And more to the point, perhaps, does it ring true to your experience?

[identity profile] cmcmck.livejournal.com 2014-02-24 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I found it an intriguing and empathetic read although it isn't my experience as I really can't imagine what being FtM must be like other than sharing the feeling of wrongness.